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Essays |
Suzanne explains: On June 8th, 2006, while crossing the flight line at Marine Corps Air Base Cherry Point, North Carolina, my step-daughter Susan, a sergeant in the Marine Corps, was struck and killed by lightning. She was six months pregnant with her first child. |
My husband, Ty, and I returned after the funeral from North Carolina to Croatia, where we had been cruising on our sailboat. For three days as we traveled south on the Adriatic Sea a yellow butterfly flew in our wake. When I commented to Ty how unusual it was to see a butterfly at sea, the winged visitor approached and flew through the cockpit, directly between us. That evening, while tying up along a sea wall on the island of Mljet, a small swarm of yellow butterflies surrounded our boat, and only our boat. The next day, while hiking along one of the island's trails, I prayed for some sign from our Susan. I can picture her now, watching us from the Other Side and thinking, "Haven't you noticed all the butterflies I've been sending you?" for suddenly a yellow butterfly approached from my left. It flew a complete circle around me, then bounced into my chest directly at my heart. The butterfly then flew a direct path toward Ty, fifty yards down the trail. Amazed, I shouted to him. He turned to see what I wanted just as the butterfly reached him, flew in a complete circle around him and bounced into his back -- at the exact spot that would have been his heart, if my shouts hadn't caused him to turn around at that precise moment. Thus ensued my search for answers about life after death. While we can never prove to others that which we can't each experience with our five physical senses, we can know the truth in our hearts. My research has led to a remarkable chain of synchronistic events, including a friendship with the remarkable psychic medium Anne Gehman. The result is my latest book, The Priest and The Medium. While our daughter's passing was the worst possible tragedy for those of us left behind, we thank her for helping to bring to others the comfort of knowing that there is no death. |
The week after her death, we noticed several unusual occurrences, such as the television in our hotel room that turned itself on and a brush like a feather against the skin under my shirt. These and other signs left us wondering if our Susan still existed, albeit in spirit. None of the signs were as hard to ignore, however, as the repeated encounters we had that week with yellow butterflies. |
NOW HERE THIS: I TALK TO SPIRITS. Check the "About Suzanne" page, and you'll find I have a pretty straight-laced background: 20 years in the Navy, management consulting … You won't find any incense burning in my home or catch me wearing any wrap-around tie-died skirts. The fact is, even I still have trouble seeing myself as the kind of person who would author a blog about talking to spirits. And others agree. A recent business client with an engineering degree, upon hearing that my upcoming book is the biography of psychic medium Anne Gehman, looked at me sideways and said, "You don't actually believe that stuff, do you?" I'm proud to say that I lifted my chin, put a big smile on my face, and replied, "I sure do." If he'd asked me the same question a couple of weeks earlier, I might have waffled. That's what I did when telling a former colleague that the spirit of his deceased daughter had come through in a reading I'd recently had with a medium. The man was a retired senior naval officer who knew me back when we were both still in uniform. I felt he would want to know that a medium who knew nothing about his family had brought up his deceased daughter's not-so-common name in a highly-evidential context with no prompting from me. There was no doubt in my mind that there'd been some real spirit communication going on, but I found myself apologizing to the man, lest he think I'd lost a few marbles since I left the Navy. After I hung up I realized I needed to make up my mind: either I believed in the spirit world or I didn't. The truth is: since the death of my own step-daughter, I no longer believe, hope, or wish that our spirit survives the transition we call death … I know. Others may think I'm a fruitcake or a New Age nut, but what others think no longer matters. As author Gary Zukov, Ph.D.,writes in his latest book, Soul to Soul, "It is not possible to provide the evidence of life after death to the five senses ... When you recognize wisdom … you must decide whether to trust what you recognize. Will you look outside yourself to make that decision, or inside?" Like me, Gary Zukav believes in life after death and that people with multisensory perception -such as mediums - can communicate with those in the spirit realm. Like me, Dr. Zukav used to wear a military uniform. He happens to be a former Green Beret. So let the stereotypes crumble. There are some very special people I love dearly who are now on the Other Side, among them my wonderful step-daughter, Susan, and my beloved father. I talk to them all the time and I know they hear me. They've told me so themselves through some very gifted mediums. I miss Susan and Dad terribly, but knowing they're not really gone brings me incredible comfort. And for that, I no longer apologize to anyone. |
LIFE GOES ON - EVEN AFTER DEATH My father didn't believe in an afterlife. By his way of thinking, when you died, that was it. One minute you're here, the next minute you enter the darkness: no heaven, no chance of ever seeing your loved ones again, so you're lucky if you lived a good life and got to say goodbye before they turned out the lights. How depressing. We didn't talk about those things too much. Religion and God were almost taboo subjects in my house growing up. So I thought it was pretty great when after one of my mother's good strong margaritas on an empty stomach, I actually got into a discussion with my dad about life after death. His opinion about the afterlife hadn't changed, but over the past year and a half, since the death of my step-daughter Susan, mine certainly had. Several evidential readings with mediums had proven to me that our spirits live on after the change we call death. Dad was too much of a gentleman to tell me he thought I was crazy. He just sat there sipping his "Margaret" and shaking his head at my "silly notions" that our bodies were occupied by a spirit that continued on eternally. "Why would I want to live forever?" he asked. At 92 he was getting kind of tired. Even when I explained that the Other Side wasn't like it is here in the physical world - that it's far more beautiful, suffused with love, and free of the aging body, he didn't want any part of it. "But wouldn't you want to spend eternity with Mom?" I asked. After 61 years together, their love was stronger than most couples ever hope for. He reached over and patted my mother's knee. "Your mother and I have enjoyed every day of our lives together," he said. "I couldn't ask for more than that." But I knew that he could. Susan had sent us too many signs in the days and months since her death to ignore the fact that she was still around. "Dad," I said, "One day I'm going to meet you on the Other Side, and when I do, I'm going to greet you with a big hug and say, 'I told you so!" He gave me a tolerant smile, and we left it at that. My dad, Bill Smeltzer, died on January 15th, 2008. My mom and all three of his kids were at his side, touching him and telling him we loved him as he took his last breath. I couldn't help but look around the room in those painful moments and wish I had a medium's gift. With my limited physical senses I wasn't able to detect his spirit as it left his body. Within minutes it was clear that his spirit no longer occupied the body that had lovingly housed him, and we were left with mere memories. I waited almost two months to consult with a medium. I spoke to Susan and my dad often, but in the days prior to the reading I meditated and sent them a very clear message that they would have an excellent chance to communicate with me through a gifted helper. I asked them to be there. The medium wasted no time. "There's a gentleman here who was pretty sick," said Janet, who knew nothing about my father or his recent death. "He had some kind of manual job around coal." Even if she had met my dad, it was unlikely that Janet would have known that decades earlier, when he first started working on the Pennsylvania railroad decked out in striped coveralls and cap, he'd shoveled coal on those ancient black steam engines. "Was this pretty recent?" she asked. "Because this is not an old passing. It feels pretty recent. There's something about William… or Bill…" That would be my dad. His real name was Oliver, but he went by Bill. "Did you write some kind of poem or a letter at the end?" No, I didn't, but my brother sure did. "He's acknowledging that the poem is very, very important to him," Janet said. My eyes were now brimming with tears. That poem had meant so much to my mom that she'd copied and framed it for the family. Now everyone would know that Dad had read the poem, too. Dad went on to tell the medium that my mother was wearing his wedding ring. (She was) And that she was talking to his picture. (All the time) And that she somehow blamed herself for his passing. (She did, although we all tried to tell her not to) Janet was getting a very clear message from my father: "She has to stop beating herself up about that. There was nothing she could have done. When it's your time, it's your time." Dad was interrupted then by the spirit of a young girl who had died rather suddenly a couple of years back. It was my Susan. She never let me down. "Why was there some delay when she died?" Janet asked. "About someone finding out? delay… delay…" That would be because Ty and I were off on our sailboat and no one could find us for two full days to share the devastating news. Janet was batting a thousand, but Susan's story is one I'll save for another day, as it was the impetus for this blog. Meanwhile, Dad's spirit was still hanging around, and he had more things to bring up, like the stack of silver dollars and the oversized Indian nickel that Janet said looked like a large medal. I'd just been to my parent's home, and that large coin with an Indian head was sitting on my dad's dresser. My mom had just mentioned the silver dollars the other day. I'd heard that Janet was a highly evidential medium, meaning that she passed along evidence that only the loved ones would know. Now I shook my head in awe: the coins, the poem, my mother's behavior ... I couldn't have asked for more poignant evidence that this medium truly was communicating with my father on the Other Side. Time was running out, and there was one thing I had to know. "Is he surprised that there's more?" I asked. It was obvious from the evidence Janet had given me, that my father was not in the world of darkness he'd long envisioned. There was a pause as Janet passed along my question, then she responded. "He says it was like an 'aha' moment, so I don't know that I want to say 'surprised.' It's almost like he feels contentment." And that's what I felt as I hung up the phone. Sheer contentment. I miss my father terribly, but now I have my proof that his spirit is around, and that he's happy. He hears my mother when she talks to him, and I know he hears me, too. He showed up for our appointment, didn't he? I passed along his messages to my brother and sister and to my mother. Back when we sipped those margaritas and had our discussion about life after death, my mom remained mostly silent. I sensed that she wanted to believe, but after 61 years with my dad, their beliefs, like their lives, had almost become one. In the days following his death, I encouraged her to talk to my dad, and she has. Good thing, because he's been listening. He's around. He loves us just as much from the Other Side as when he was here beside us. My mother's energy increased dramatically in the days after hearing the evidential messages from that reading. She's had a spring in her step that none of us had seen in quite a while. "I feel more at peace than I have since your father died," Mom told me. And that, my friends, is the whole point of consulting a medium. |
A MEDIUM FOR MY MOM I just had my sixth reading with a medium. Now, I could rationalize and say that I had to visit another medium for research on my current book project, but that wouldn't tell the whole story. The truth is, I love having readings. I'm at the stage where I'm convinced that life is continuous, yet I'm still amazed when perfect strangers tell me things about my loved ones that they have no way of knowing. I took my mother along for her first reading. I was nervous, not knowing if this medium was the real deal. Mom went into the medium's guest room while I waited in the living room. When it was my turn, we didn't have a chance to compare notes. The medium spent the first fifteen minutes telling me things about my life. I sat there wondering when she was going to get to the spirits I'd hoped to see. After another few minutes of banter I began to despair that my mother's first experience with a medium had been a bust. Then we hit pay dirt. "I see the same man next to you who I saw with your mother," the woman said, "and I'm getting the name 'Bill'." I bolted upright in my chair, my eyes wide. "You told her you saw Bill?" "Yes," she said, "and now he's like a broken record, saying, "Dad, Dad, Dad, Dad." I flopped back, tingly all over. My mother had been a non-believer all her life. Hearing her husband's name from a woman who knew nothing about her except her first name would surely open the door to belief that Mom's husband of 61 years was around her in spirit. When my hour was up, Mom and I stumbled to the car. I had to concentrate on my driving on the way to a coffee shop where we compared notes. To my great pleasure, I learned that Mom had received far greater evidence that Dad's spirit lived on than merely his name. You see, Dad's real name was Oliver, but he went by Bill. When the medium told Mom that she heard him say, "Just call me Bill," she had unknowingly passed along the exact four words my dad would say to every new person he met. When the medium told me that my dad was giving me a big bear hug and "squeezing me to pieces" she probably wasn't aware that my dad had always hugged a bit too hard in his exuberance to show his love. It was beyond comforting to hear that he knew his whole family was around the bed when he took his last breath and that he didn't die alone, but the message he gave my mom about that moment made us both reach for the Kleenex. "I heard the whistle blow," Dad's spirit told the medium, "and I knew it was time to go." This message, from a retired railroad engineer, could not have been more perfect. My hour with the medium was almost up, but I hadn't yet heard from the one spirit who I always longed to hear from: my step-daughter, Susan, killed by lightning at age 27. "Is there a young woman here?" I asked, feeling as if I were cheating by prompting the meeting. "Why yes," the woman answered without pause, "but I didn't bring her up because she keeps giving me YOUR name. She's saying, 'I'm Susan! I'm Susan!'" I laughed with utter joy and informed the medium, "She's not giving you MY name ... I'm Suzanne-Susan is the woman I'm looking for!" "Oh, well," the medium said, (and now for the drumroll ...) "Susan is here and she's telling me that she's filling your life with butterflies." Her words brought me instantly to tears. Nothing she could have said would have been more meaningful (see the butterfly story at the top of this page). All of the amazing encounters we've had with butterflies since Susan's death were instantly validated, as was Susan's presence beside me at that moment. |
If you liked these essays,be sure to check out Suzanne's blog. |
For information on a reading with Suzanne, click here. |